Tactile Sand Portraits for Students with Visual Impairments

  

While the finished project of this sand image may look like it was inspired by street artists and their stencils, we were actually studying photographer, Vik Muniz. Muniz is a Brazilian artist who makes images (often based on master paintings) using non traditional materials such as recyclable items or chocolate syrup or sugar. When we discussed his sugar portraits of children whose parents work on sugar plantations, one of my students was excited about the possibilities.

There were a few challenges however, one, sugar ants are really hard to get rid of once they find your sugar stash, and two, my student has zero vision and couldn't make a value drawing with sugar on black paper from observation. So we started with the same place we've started all month, with photographs of the student. I had traced this student's photo in hot glue for her water color assignment, so she already had a tactile place to start. She used a separate piece of paper to do a crayon rubbing of the hot glue image. I cut out the shapes and lines made by the rubbing. Then she used the stencil, a foam brush and glue to get a flat, even layer of glue onto another piece of paper, in the shape of her profile. She sprinkled with her favorite color (pink) sand, shook off the access and was thrilled to have a tactile self portrait to share with her family.  When it comes to making art history relevant: where there's a will, there's a way.

 

Leaf Stencils

Fall has officially started and it is the perfect time to explore the many types of leaves before they're gone. I took my students on a "scavenger hunt" last week, for as many different shapes and sizes of leaves as we could find. While collecting leaves took up most of the class period, the art project itself only took a minute. We simply set a few twigs and leaves on a sheet of paper outside, and spray painted them and the paper around them. When we picked up the leaves, the shape was documented as negative space. The documentation of the leaves will last years after the actual leaves shrivel and turn to dust. I love the ephemeral quality of the finished products and the instant gratification of this project.   

My friend, Matt Forrest helped me teach the concept of stenciling on a deeper level by making silk screen of a few of our spray painted images. My students learned how to pull serigraphs (screen prints) with textile ink. While the ink was wet, my students dusted the images with flocking which gave a fuzzy texture. The second day and added process was worth it to make the images more meaningful for my students who see with their eyes.

Art Projects for the Little Ones

My students this year have ages ranging from 5 to 20. They're all blind or visually impaired and many have multiple disabilities, so my creative exercise each day is figuring out how to teach each individual child something about art that they didn't know before. I try to keep similar units and themes, whether the classes are elementary, middle school, or high school level, just to help have visual reinforcement of those concepts in my room. Our first month back at school this year was shape month, and our second month is centered on line. This post centers on shape and line assignments for the youngest of my students.

Matisse Collage

This assignment gave me a chance to tell stories about the life of Henri Matisse and explain the concept of "painting with scissors."  Students were told to use geometric shapes in the background and organic shapes in the foreground. I love explaining things in pairs of opposites: geometric and organic, background and foreground. For the children who were able to use modified scissors, they were encouraged to create their own shapes, but I had piles of pre-cut shapes for the ones who aren't to that point.

Watercolor Resist Still Life

We used the design element of shape to talk about how to depict still life objects. This time the medium was oil pastel and watercolor. This student used circles to create a bowl of apples.

Stamping Animal Shapes
For this assignment we used repetition of shapes to create unity. It was fun passing sponges around and having students guess the animal shape of each.

Barnett Newman Line Painting

In case you hadn't heard, a Newman painting of a blue line, entitled Onement VI, sold for almost $44 million at a Sotheby's auction last year. That piece of news was a fun way to discuss the value of line and introduce minimalism to first and second graders.  Rubber bands stretched around paper and cardboard acted as stencils for students to create their own straight line paintings. It wasn't my favorite project, but it has potential so I may try it again one year with modifications.

Yarn Drawings
While the older students were doing their string art, by stretching it across boards or sewing it through holes, the younger students were using glue and yarn collage to create drawings.